Did Molefe resign, retire or go on leave?

In the last week or so South Africans have seen what can only be described as one of the most bizarre series of events surrounding why the former Eskom CEO, Brian Molefe, was reinstated.

In that time, Molefe has gone from resigning to taking early retirement, to being put on unpaid leave.

The DA has publicly called on the Minister of Public Enterprises, Lynne Brown, to immediately suspend the board of Eskom following their shocking and flagrantly arrogant statements at the extraordinary sitting of the Portfolio Committee of Public Enterprises.

The Board stated that it stands by the affidavit submitted by Dr Ben Ngubane which claims that Molefe never resigned from his position at Eskom.

This, despite Molefe himself in his resignation statement saying that “I have, in the interests of good corporate governance, decided to leave my employ at Eskom from 1 January 2017”.

This was echoed by Minister Brown in an official press statement where she unequivocally confirmed that Molefe had “resigned.”

The Board also claimed to be in the best financial position they have been in for ages and generally gave themselves a big pat on the back for keeping the country’s lights on. This statement is simply laughable.

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They then also claimed that no wrong-doings have occurred in the organisation and claimed malicious intent by the public was fuelling the bad media around the entity.

The Eskom board is hopelessly out of touch with reality, and cannot be trusted to run the company responsible for providing our people and economy with electricity.

The performance by the Board’s representatives did absolutely nothing to instil confidence that they are willing or able to address the very real and serious issues at Eskom.

They must go immediately and Parliament must use it powers to fully interrogate and recommend solutions to this mess.

Minister Brown must act now, and she must act decisively.

Nothing short of a suspension of the full board, and a full-scale Parliamentary Inquiry will rescue Eskom.